Updated February 14, 2018 at 6:01 AM;Posted February 14, 2018 at 6:00 AM

n this Sept. 14, 2017, photo, Hanida Begum, a Rohingya Muslim woman, right, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, grieves along with her relatives as she holds her dead son Abdul Masood at the shore of Bay of Bangal after their boat capsized in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh.
(Dar Yasin)

Last September, I stepped out of the grocery line to hold my slightly fussy then 4-month-old son as my husband finished checking us out. While we waited, I glanced at the cover of The Oregonian only to see the image of an aggrieved father holding the lifeless body of his son. They were Rohingya refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and when their boat capsized, Abdul, their 40-day-old son, drowned.

That night, when I held the limp, sleeping body of my son close to me, I cried for a family I would never meet. I asked a twist on an age-old question when I prayed, "why do good things happen to people who are no more deserving than others?" Why is my son safe and warm and alive while another family is left to bury theirs? Why does my family not have to flee a genocide when another family does? Why, through no merit or good deed of my own, do I have security, stability and resources?

When I think about the immigration debate, about walls and Dreamers, about refugees from Syria and El Salvador, I come back to when Jesus answered what was supposed to be a trick question with "The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these" (Mark 12:31).

In light of the lifeless body of Abdul, I have to assume that Jesus would also tell me to "Love your neighbor's child as you love your own."

In the weeks and months since I read that article, as I have scooped my son out of his bassinette in the middle of the night to clutch his little body against my own, and as I have lifted him, smiling and dripping, out of his bath, I have been confronted with the unbidden image of Abdul's parents, their faces etched with sorrow, clinging to their own dead son. After wrapping my arms around the most precious person in the world to me, it's a lot harder to ask the question "and who is my neighbor?" -- as the man does in the Gospel of Luke in his attempt to narrow the responsibility to love his neighbor as himself.

As a country, we could actually live up the promise of Emma Lazarus, etched into the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," if we took an empathic approach to immigration. I ask you to embrace the person most dear to you and then ask yourself, if my grandmother, friend, child or spouse had to flee violence, starvation, war or injustice, how would I want the richest country in the world to receive her or him? The answer to that question should be our starting place for immigration reform.

Emily Casey Keller lives in Southwest Portland.

Share your opinion

Submit your essay of 800 words or less on a highly topical issue or a theme of particular relevance to the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and the Portland area to commentary@oregonian.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification.